


these boys of light

by oliviacirce



Series: see the boys of summer [1]
Category: NCT (Band), We Go Up - NCT Dream (Music Video)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Families of Choice, Friendship, Gen, Multi, Post-Apocalypse, Road Trips, Superpowers, implied OT7, rockets, space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-24 13:42:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17101664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oliviacirce/pseuds/oliviacirce
Summary: "What would you do," Renjun says, "if it was your last day on earth?"





	these boys of light

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pyrophane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyrophane/gifts).



> Dear pyrophane: Your prompts and list of likes were all _so great_ , I wish I could have fit them all in! I hope this story fulfills some of your fic desires. ♥ And for anyone who wound up here without knowing what they were getting into: [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LV1Es22E0RI) is the music video in which this fic takes place.

"What would you do," Renjun says, "if it was your last day on earth?" 

Mark stares at him. Around them, the party is in full swing. Haechan and Jisung are bouncing a basketball back and forth—possibly with their minds—and Chenle is producing rainbow bubbles from his fingertips and sending them to float in circles around Jeno's head. Chenle's loud dolphin-laugh cuts across the base beat of the music, but Jeno's eyes are wide with awe as he watches the bubbles—even if Mark's not entirely sure what the utility is of a power that allows you to materialize phosphorescent soap bubbles from the ends of your fingers. On the couch, Jaemin is lying on his back with his dyed-pink hair in a halo, his drink hovering in the air above his face. 

"It is my last day on earth," Mark says. 

A crease appears between Renjun's perfect eyebrows. "Maybe," he says judiciously. "But in that case, isn't it an even more important question?" 

Mark glances behind him, at the table where the hourglass sits, counting down the time he has left in grains of sand. 

"Maybe," he says, echoing Renjun. He keeps his voice quiet, trying not to attract the attention of the others. Haechan is eyeing them, hyper-aware of every mood in the room. "Maybe, but it would just be this, you know? Spending time with my friends. Dancing and singing and playing pranks, and, like, falling asleep on top of each other. Kicking Jeno's ass at basketball. Stealing Jaemin's drink before he drops it on his face." He pauses, trying not to feel too warm at the look of exasperated fondness on Renjun's face. "If we got tired of that, then—maybe a drive down to the coast? I wouldn't mind seeing the ocean again, before I go." 

For a second, Renjun honest-to-god looks like he's about to cry. Then Jisung drops down between them, flinging himself into Mark's lap and draping his ridiculously long legs over Renjun's knees. "Did somebody say something about a roadtrip?" His grin is the definition of shit-eating. 

Renjun rolls his eyes. "Hyung was saying he wants to drive to the ocean." 

Jisung pokes Mark in the cheek. " _You're_ not going to drive, are you? Because then we might all die." 

It's such a terrible joke— _savage_ , Mark thinks, feeling oddly proud of Jisung, the worst maknae left on earth—that he actually has to laugh; which, of course, was Jisung's entire goal. "Show some respect," Mark says, shoving Jisung off his lap, "nobody's going to _die_. Haechan can drive." 

"Sure," Haechan says mildly, just as Jaemin sits up abruptly—catching his drink out of the air and setting it smoothly on the end table—and complains, "What if I wanted to drive?" 

Jaemin's control is much better than it used to be, but Mark still doesn’t trust him not to try driving with telekinesis. "Um—" he starts, before Jeno sits down next to Jaemin and puts his hand on his thigh. 

"You don't want to drive, though," Jeno says cheerfully, even as Jaemin narrows his eyes. "You want to sit in the back with me and lean dangerously out of the top of the convertible." 

Jaemin considers this for a moment, studying Jeno's guileless face, and then grins. "Point," he acknowledges, and leans into the arm Jeno wraps around his shoulders. "Haechan can drive." 

There's a long moment where nobody moves—comfortable, Mark thinks, in the confined space of the party, hidden away from the vast empty spaces of the world outside. Inside, in this cozy red-walled room, where they can still pretend that things are normal, that they’ll be able to stay together forever. But then Chenle taps his fingernail against the hourglass, a clear ringing bell, and says, "What are we waiting for? Let's go, hyung."

They go. 

* 

Seoul is deserted. Intellectually, Mark knew it would be like this, but the reality is harder to face: the empty buildings and parking lots, the overrun grass, the expanse of open road even before they leave the city. They see animals everywhere—Haechan screeches the car to a halt to let a whole family of deer cross the road, and there are cranes at every intersection—but there are no people, not even other groups of teenagers. That's more of a surprise. With everyone remaining under twenty, Mark half-expected to see some evidence of other kids; but maybe the pirate radio out of Toronto is right, and most people have left the cities, keeping hidden while they wait to age out, and up. 

The deer freak Haechan out, so Jeno takes a turn behind the wheel. Driving through Gangnam, he veers past an abandoned 7-11 and swings the car around to drive up onto the rooftop parking lot of the COEX mall. It's just as empty and abandoned as everything else, but up on the roof they can see for miles, Seoul spread out around them. 

"I thought we were going to the ocean!" Jaemin yells, leaning into the front seat to punch Jeno in the arm. 

"I wanted to see the city!" Jeno yells back, and Mark knows why; he feels it, too. It's beautiful up here, sunny and bright with miles of blue sky dotted with marshmallow clouds. No smoke, no smog—just the clear sweet air and birds singing in the towers of the skyscrapers. 

They pile out of the car just in time to see the first rocket go up. Haechan stops, staring up at the white contrail streaking across the sky. Mark watches him stop breathing for a second, frozen and fixed, and then he turns around and barrels right into Mark. Mark squeaks, momentarily terrified before he realizes that Haechan is just hugging him. 

"Hey, hey," Mark says, gently shaking him off. "It's okay, it's fine." 

"I used to dream about space," Haechan says. "When I was a kid, I thought astronauts were so cool. The great unknown, whatever. But now—" 

"It's still pretty cool," Mark says, carefully. The other five are over by the edge of the roof, doing some sort of maniacal dance while four more rockets go up behind them. Someone—he's betting on Chenle—has found a hose, and a water fight is imminent. "We don't know what's up there, not really." 

"That's what frightens me," Haechan says, terrifyingly. Mark doesn't like it when Haechan is scared of things. " _I_ don't know what's up there, and you're going up in one of those rockets, all by yourself, without us, and we don't _know_ —" 

"You'll come after me," Mark says. "In a year, it'll be your turn." Haechan doesn't look mollified, so Mark reaches out and squeezes his hands. "Seriously, Dongsookie, we're a team. You really think space can keep us apart?" 

He lifts a hand to his temple and waves his fingers back and forth, trying to convey his weird dream-walking power, the way he slips between consciousnesses in his sleep. It's not like he really knows what he's doing; it's not like any of them had any training for the powers that started appearing after everything changed. After the world ended, and everyone over the age of twenty went up in the rockets. But wherever the powers came from, and whatever they're for, Mark doesn't think he's going to lose his when he leaves. He has to believe he won't—has to believe, somehow, that he'll still be able to find the rest of them, wherever he goes. 

"Hey, assholes," Jaemin says loudly, pointing a hose at them. "Are you done talking about your feelings? We don't have all day." 

Haechan rolls his eyes, and then hugs Mark again, quick and hard. "Okay," he says, "but you'd better believe we're coming after you, hyung." 

"Yeah, yeah," Mark says, and goes to grab a hose. 

*

They put the top down on the drive to the coast, and Mark climbs into the back of the convertible with Jaemin and Jeno and Jisung. As Jeno predicted, they all lean dangerously out into the open air, screaming into the wind as Haechan speeds down the highway. By the time they reach the beach, Mark feels windswept and carefree; his voice is hoarse from shouting into the wind, from singing to the cranes and the bears and the foxes. He's oddly buoyant, like he's full of Chenle's bubbles, like maybe he could fly. 

At the beach, they race each other across the sand, laughing and dancing. The sun is starting to set, the light on the water almost impossibly golden, and it's so beautiful that Mark has to stop and stare after his friends: silhouetted against the ocean; caught for a moment in time. He thinks, suddenly, that if this is all he gets, then it might be enough. 

Then Jaemin comes running back to him and grabs his hand. "Come on," he says, "this is your day." 

"It's _our_ day," Mark protests, but Jaemin squeezes his hand hard enough that Mark feels it like a tether, pulling him back down to earth. 

"It's yours to take with you," Jaemin says sharply, "until we find each other again." 

Mark says, entirely involuntary, "I don't want to leave." 

Jaemin gives Mark a long look, understanding and exasperation and enough love that Mark has to swallow hard and glance away, up at the orange streaks across the sky. "I know," Jaemin says. Jaemin, who knows better than any of them what it's like to be alone; Jaemin, who they all thought they'd lost forever, in the first few months after the end of the world. "It's hard," Jaemin says, "but you're Mark Lee. You're going to be fine, up there in space. Never doubt that." He grins, lighting-fast and dangerous, "And you heard what Haechan said. We're coming after you." 

"Promise?" Mark asks. 

"Promise," Jaemin says, and pulls Mark with him down to the water. 

They stay on the beach as the sun goes down and the sky gets dark, until Jisung claps his hands together and produces fireworks from his fingertips, smoldering sparks as he passes them around. Jaemin and Chenle launch the fireworks into the air, and they watch them streaking across the sky as brightly as rockets, lighting up the night. 

*

It's late when they get back—late enough that Haechan and Jisung are snoring lightly in the back seat, and Chenle, who took his turn behind the wheel, is the only one with enough energy to shake them gently awake. Renjun is yawning hugely, and Jeno and Jaemin look asleep on their feet. Inside, everyone finds a spot on the couch or the floor or curled up in an armchair, eyes drifting closed again. Even Chenle settles down beside Jisung, after one last look at the hourglass and Mark. Mark thinks about sitting down himself, about falling asleep and walking between their dreams, about saying goodbye. But it's too late for that now. He'll have to try saying hello, instead, wherever the rocket takes him. 

He looks down at the sleeping faces of his friends: beloved, and precious, and impossible to forget. He's going to find them again; or they'll find him, when they all go up. He exhales, a long slow breath, and then turns out the lights and runs his hand over the hanging cards of their population counter. Then he flips over the 7. In his absence, the cards flutter, and then still: 6, 0, gone.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Lucy and Beth, and to Dylan Thomas for [the title](https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/i-see-boys-summer). Since this is set in the world of the music video, I made the executive decision to call everyone by their stage names, which is why Haechan is Haechan and not Donghyuck.


End file.
